Incorrect or missing icons or thumbnails in Windows 10

With the introduction of Windows 10 and significant changes in icons and thumbnails caching the issues of:

• missing or incorrect applications or file types icons or
• thumbnails being displayed incorrectly or also missing

is more than common.

In this article I present most often used solution for above problems. Not all of them must be run in you particular example and they will not help you for every icon- or thumbnail-related issue.

But, this is the most comprehensive solution that I found so far, since many of these attempts are spread in the Internet across many different sources. Here you have all of them in one place.

Reset the icon cache database

This is the first approach that solves most of “easy” problems with icons and thumbs (source).

Before you start:

1. Close all applications and programs running. Have empty taskbar before you continue.
2. Taskbar and background wallpaper will be gone (turn black) when you terminate File Explorer (point 4. below).

That’s normal and temporal. There’s nothing to worry about.

Steps:

1. Run the Command Prompt as and administrator (right-click Start and select Command Prompt (Admin)).
2. Type cd %homepath%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer and hit Enter.
3. Verify correct location by executing dir iconcache* (you should see at least one .db file named iconcache).
4. Terminate File Explorer by typing taskkill /f /im explorer.exe and pressing Enter.
5. Delete the icon cache: del iconcache*.
6. Verify correctness of deletion by executing dir iconcache* (you should see no .db files named iconcache).
7. Restart File Explorer by typing explorer.exe and hitting Enter to confirm.
8. Verify, if your problem is resolved. Close Command Prompt, if yes. Continue to the next part, if not.

If you’re getting access denied errors when deleting icon cache files (point 5. above) or if you still see some iconcache files after deletion then either you did not run Command Prompt as an admin or you still have some programs, services or apps running in background. Fix these problems and try again.

Recreate the thumbnail cache

If you are not using the thumbnails (i.e. have Always show icons, never thumbnails option checked in File Explorer‘s options) then you may safely skip this point. However, there were some unconfirmed reports that performing these steps won’t hurt, but may help, even if you have issue with the icons.

You can clear the thumbnail cache with Disk Cleanup tool (details) or, again, with elevated Command Prompt:

1. Close all applications and programs running. Have empty taskbar before you continue.
2. Run the Command Prompt as and administrator (right-click Start and select Command Prompt (Admin)).
3. Terminate File Explorer by typing taskkill /f /im explorer.exe and pressing Enter.
4. Execute: del /f /s /q /a %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db.
5. Restart File Explorer by typing explorer.exe and hitting Enter to confirm.
6. Verify, if your problem is resolved. Close Command Prompt, if yes. Continue to the next part, if not.

If, on contrary to above, you are using thumbnails then make sure they’re enabled:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Switch to the View tab and then click on Options to open Folder Options.
3. Switch to the View tab.
4. Double check that the Always show icons, never thumbnails option is unchecked.
5. Click Apply and then OK to complete the task.

Fix the Windows image

Now, it is time to use a bit bigger cannons.

DISM enumerates, installs, uninstalls, configures, and updates features and packages in Windows images. The commands that are available depend on the image being serviced and whether the image is offline or running.

Steps:

1. Close all applications and programs running. Have empty taskbar before you continue.
2. Run the Command Prompt as and administrator (right-click Start and select Command Prompt (Admin)).
3. Execute: dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth command.
4. Give it some time (5-15 minutes) to complete.
5. Restart the system.
6. Verify, if your problem is resolved. Continue to the next part, if not.

You should see:

The restore operation completed successfully. The operation completed successfully.

after DISM operation completion. In any other case, check the information in Command Prompt itself or in the log files pointed by DISM.

Scan the protected files

SFC scans the integrity of all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct versions.

1. Close all applications and programs running. Have empty taskbar before you continue.
2. Run the Command Prompt as and administrator (right-click Start and select Command Prompt (Admin)).
3. Execute: sfc.exe /scannow command.
4. Give it some time (5-15 minutes) to complete.
5. Restart the system.
6. Verify, if your problem is resolved.

At this point — if your issue is still not resolved — Uncle Google is the only one that will maybe help you.